As described in JP 2008-157723 A, one such liquid sample quantity determiner is equipped with a rod that introduces blood into a through hole opening in its lateral circumferential surface by capillary action, and a scrape-off member that has an insertion hole having substantially the same diameter as the rod to slidably support the rod. In this quantity determiner, only by bringing blood into contact with the through hole of the rod, blood is automatically held in the through hole by capillary action. Also, this quantity determiner is one that quantifies blood on the basis of the principle that when sliding the rod relative to the scrape-off member, the scrape-off member scrapes off blood existing outside the through hole of the rod.
However, even in the case of holding the liquid sample in the whole of the through hole, it is not necessarily the case that, near the opening, the liquid sample is held so as to be completely scraped off, which becomes a factor causing quantitative error.
There is also a problem that the through hole is one that introduces a predetermined quantity of liquid sample by capillary action; however, if an inside diameter of the through hole is increased to accommodate a volume to be quantified, as a result insufficient capillary action may be obtained, and therefore it may take an undesirably long time to determine a quantity.